40 | Do the work
"Don’t make excuses for not working—make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now." — Austin Kleon
Hello friends,
After a few months of unexpected hiatus, I’m back to this newsletter at last and to creating content in general. For all of the newcomers and readers who have recently joined this list, hi! 👋🏾 I would love it if you would consider hitting the “reply” button, and introduce yourself: what’s your name and what are you up to these days?
Now, without further ado, on to this week's topic: doing the work.
Don't get stuck in overplanning.
It's quite easy to let ourselves get stuck with overplanning and never get into action. Out of perfectionism and our desire to make things right and avoid losing time we... never (or rarely) actually get to work and, in turn, lose precious time and opportunities, both to learn and to create.
As meta as it might sound, it's what happened when I started writing this newsletter. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to write but I kept getting distracted. For the sake of "researching and getting inspired", I would end up browsing various websites or even my Notion databases for quotes, notes, etc., only to find myself hours later with the same, irremediable blank page.
“Modern art = I could do that + Yeah, but you didn’t.” — Craig Damrauer
Now, don't get me wrong, planning, researching, getting inspired are all parts of the process (or rather they contribute to it), but they are not the work. They are not the key to whatever your craft is and, as important as they are, we can't afford to stay stuck in endless planning.
Just start somewhere... anywhere.
Whether writing, coding, designing or anything else, whenever I feel stuck on any kind of project for too long, I know I need to step into action. It doesn't matter what I do, or how I do it, I just need to do something, to experiment and touch the matter at hand, not just the theory.
"There is a simple but profound principle that emerges from understanding the way your perceptive filters work: you won’t see how to do it until you see yourself doing it."
— David Allen (in Getting Things Done)
If you are in the same situation, just get started anywhere and remove your expectations for perfect and linear work. If you need to write a post or dissertation and you are inspired for the conclusion before the rest then just go for it! Write it, listen to your intuitions and just get stuff done, in the real world.
Review your expectations
At the end of the day, just remember to have fun and enjoy the process. If you are in a creative field then, there is no Golden Rule for how things should be. You don't need to plan everything and have it all figured out today. It's okay if it doesn't make sense yet or if you don't know if it will please your audience. Just do your thing, experiment, play around and do things "badly" until you learn how to make them better.
"Don’t throw any of yourself away. Don’t worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don’t worry about unity—what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day, you’ll look back and it will all make sense."
— Austin Kleon
To make quality work you need to bet on quantity. Just get up every day and do the work without thinking twice. Don't define perfection by someone else's standards; instead, stay bold enough to always be yourself.
Quick Note: If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can subscribe right here:
— What I loved this week
Here's what I've been loving this week:
📱 One app I'm loving: Instapaper. After having been an avid Pocket user for years, I just switched to Instapaper which should allow me to take better notes on what I read and leverage the Instapaper + Readwise => Notion integration to make it all more actionable.
📖 Book recommendation: I just finished reading 📕 Man's Search for Meaning, in which Dr. Victor E. Frankl dives into his own experience and spiritual discoveries as an inmate in the Auschwitz concentration camps. He explains how life is not about avoiding suffering, but finding meaning for it. After all, as the author quotes himself from Nietzche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
🗣 Quote of the week: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
— Victor E. Frankl
✏️ Content, books and videos I learned from this week:
📰 Selective Ignorance: Cultivating Intentional Knowledge in a Chaotic World | Anne-Laure Le Cunff
🎥 The Egg - A Short Story | Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
📘 Steal Like An Artist | Austin Kleon
🎥 My Design Process - How I do it | Yath Prem
— What I created this week
Here is what I created for you lately.
🎓 Complete University Student Workflow using Notion
I just published my very first Notion template! If you’re a student, with this template you’ll find all of the tools you need to stay both effective and stress-free for the next semester, even with online classes.
This template was the 19th gift of the Notion Ambassador Advent Calendar. There are lots of interesting tools and workflows in there, you should check it out!
🥳 New version for the blog!
This week I updated the layout as well as completely restructured the blog to make the experience more actionable and enjoyable for the readers. At last, I published a complete list of my book recommendations. Finally, for those who are interested, I’ll be publishing soon a whole section only dedicated to Notion, with all of my templates, posts and other resources, so stay tuned for that!
See you next week 👋🏾